World Map

[louis.mervoyer]

A good thing could be that the global map is unknow at the begining of the game.

Then you can send scout in order to find good resources/location. If you want to move you have a better idea of your destination.

Moreover it come be use in late game to move between the differente settlements (I always found a bit strange that in cities building games, all the resources you need are on the same town). I thing it is more realistic to have several small and specilized village scatter in the region than one big all in one settlement (for late periods you can have a big town and small resources gathering villages around). That way you have internal trade route to manage (more strategical importance for river due to easier trade)

However, it will cpu consumizing if we want the village to progress simultaneously.

[Octavius]

@lotus253: That´s a great idea indeed! (But maybe a bit complex for the first release?)

[GuardianKing191]

So I’m not 100% sure on casual games concept for what they want to do for maps and map sizes in the final build. However I do know that with a lot of games where you have one map you play throughout the whole save, once you reach maximum everything it feels like there is nothing left to do. However in games like rimworld they created an element that changes this. So as a topic I think it would be neat to see an overlay, or world map (custom generated) with areas you could choose to play on. Then if you wanted to travel or explore more areas you just go back to the world map and go to the next node. Like I said earlier similar to how rimworlds concept is like. I’d love to hear other people’s ideas on something like this, or about maps in general.

[Grigor]

In older city-building games, like Caesar III, Pharaoh, Zeus: Master of Olympus, Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom, and Children of the Nile, there is a whole world map, or at least region map, outside of your city map, teeming with different cities and sites, trade partners and enemies, allies and colonies. In these games, you never really had the situation that @louis.mervoyer describes, where “all the resources you need are on the same town”. There were always resources that you couldn’t produce in your own town for various reasons, or other wares that were luxuries, and that your citizens demanded. Not to mention the fact that you wanted to export goods to afford imports. Hence, whether you liked it or not, you had to engage with the outside world, far away from your sturdy city walls. This in turn involved you in the politics of the city states and tribes, helping some and not others, making enemies and alliances…

Especially in Zeus: Master of Olympus, the missions often would jump between your main city, and some colony that you had to found, or even had already founded, but needed to grow. You couldn’t do this on your own however, it had to be a scripted part of the “campaign”, I’m afraid

I guess if they developed a mechanic like this in Ancient Cities, it would become more like what @GuardianKing191 and @louis.mervoyer are describing: once you’ve grown your settlement to the point that you feel the lack of… something, let’s say tin… and you’ve already sent out scouts and “emissaries” to explore and make contact with other villages and cities and tribes… then you could have the option to send out a group of colonisers to found a new settlement, maybe twenty kilometres upstream, closer to the mountains, where there’s tin ore

[tschuschi]

Would (strategically) design as the first CIV or “The Settler”. It was always exciting to explore the world gradually and to find sources of raw material. At some point you encounter a foreign culture and diplomacy begins … The moment “we are not the only ones” raises many questions and generates tension.

[louis.mervoyer]

With example from other game I discuss with @Sargon about world map implementation.

Bronze Age Expansion

The closer game feature I can think of is the simcity 4 region map : [image] You can choose any square and build in it, moreover they are linked together My idea is to merge this map with the anno series trade map : [image]

The idea is to have a world map like the Sierra serie game but with direct links between maps (like the SimCity 4 example I gave). Of course somes features mus be change :

• The map is unknow at the beginning
• Identifiy resources must visible (only if you reach a certain level : you can not identify tin or copper if you are in Neolithic period)
• Trade routes
• Other tribes

Many more stuffs could be add (debate open )

However, from was I understand, the world map is schedule for the Bronze dlc only (due to devs time). So for base game it will be added after release.

[Grigor]

Here is how the map looks in Zeus: Master of Olympus. There are different symbols of cities depending on if they’re Greek or some other culture, and what relation they have to you. Clicking on them reveals their view on you (which you can click on to see more of the history of your relationship), what they produce (or export), and what they need (or import). Below that are different action, like giving a gift, begging (or demanding) the same, sending a scout to reveal more about their city, opening up trade, and of course, attacking. When attacking, you can choose to just plunder them, or to actually conquer them and making them your vassal, owing you tribute.
There are also “distant” cities, that can’t be engaged with, other than trade. And as the missions progress, some cities appear, that were insignificant before, while others disappear from the map, because they close themselves or are destroyed.

I think I would prefer this style of map, preferably very crudely hand-drawn, since we aren’t supposed to have maps practically at all, and our knowledge of geography should be very limited. The Simcity IV or Anno map seems too… modern, I guess, too many details, to well made, @louis.mervoyer. But I completely agree that the map should be covered with terra incognita in the beginning, or perhaps some almost fantasy, mythical elements, from folklore and oral traditions: “our elders talk of mountains, far in the north (rather: “towards the star sign of… ‘The Great Lion’”), that reached the sky, with terrible birds that could swallow a man whole”. And of course, if we do not know of copper, our scouts should not have been able to map any deposits far away

And yes, a world map would be mostly worthless before population reaches a certain level, and people become sedentary. So we’ll see in… mid 2019 maybe

Below a typical “world map” from Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom, and Pharaoh:

[tschuschi]

@louis.mervoyer

you can not identify tin or copper if you are in Neolithic period)

mmh, Opposition. Would say that you can identify it. First, perhaps, only to produce colors from the oxides. At some point the experiment of melting must begin, otherwise one does not come into the Bronze Age.
At approximately the same time, the foundations for an above-ground mining would also have to be developed. If it becomes commercial goods, there must be sufficient quantity.

[tschuschi]

A fundamental question would be whether to take a map of the actual earth as a basis. There are two reasons for this. 1. from a certain moment, the player can place his settlement around and has a clue what he can expect where. Among other things, 2. suffers the replay value. In later game phases the game must repeat itself or at least resemble it. This may take a while in Russia. However, e.g. in Crete the later gameplay is almost predestined.
At the beginning, the player could be given the choice whether to play a realistic world map, or a generated with realistic climate zones. Could be exciting, if each new game encounter other peoples in the immediate neighborhood… would have to test.

[louis.mervoyer]

@tschuschi

otherwise one does not come into the Bronze Age.

Indeed So let say you can start to see it around mid/late Neolithic, sound good ?

[Grigor]

Allow me to import from the thread about technology: Research, tech tree, or just leveling up?

• An event pops: “A villager has made a discovery! Young Ugga-bugga was playing in the forest and discovered a strange new rock”. Turns out there is a small amount of natural occurring native gold (“pure” gold, visible with the naked eye) near the village, and a kid stumbled upon it.
• Some time later a new event: “A villager has made a discovery!”. Someone accidentally, or purposely, put some of the native gold in the fire, and it turned liquid… but then became hard again when cooled. Metallurgy! A miracle!
• Then, someday if you’re extremely lucky, and there’s native copper nearby, a new event will pop: “A villager has made a discovery!”, and you’ve discovered copper.
• Since your villagers already know of melting one strange stone, they might try it with copper. Of course, it would take a very long time till copper became tool rather than luxury…

[Grigor]

That is a very relevant question, and one that will decide a lot about the future of the game. I for one would prefer not having access to our real life world map. It creates way too much expectations, and often forces the hand of the player. Starting in Mesopotamia, in Egypt, in Greece, in Spain, in France, in the Indus valley, Huang He and so forth…

If instead we would start in a randomised world, but also, as you say, @tschuschi, very realistically based on our current understanding of climate and geography, that would create an unpredictability and lack of knowledge for the player which simulates the actual lack of knowledge of those days. I mean, in a real life map, all the copper, tin, iron, silver and gold deposits are always locked to certain places. As are other resources, from the fertile lands of the Two Rivers to the cedar forests of the Levant. The player has all the cards before hand. Not to mention major climate changes, discussed in other parts of this forum.

In a random map… you never know what to expect. Around the next turn, there might be an impassable mountain range, or a fertile river valley, or a steppe opening up, and so forth… You might be lucky enough to have settled in an area full of native gold, maybe marble, or good mud for ceramics. Maybe the river you are settling by is full of fish, and few predators? Who knows, maybe the yearly floods that you don’t know about, never affect this area? Or… they do!

[louis.mervoyer]

Indeed the map i take from SimCity must be modify in order to be more “Neolithic” but it was for illustrate my point of view of continuous map. The map you show are less CPU thristy so maybe we will have that.

[tschuschi]

@louis.mervoyer

Indeed So let say you can start to see it around mid/late Neolithic, sound good ?

impossible, to formulate it better
I could imagine that the raw materials for bronze and even iron were found long before the beginning of the respective era. However, they did not have any direct value before somebody started to heat them. With tin I could imagine a coincidence at the camp fire where a “stone” suddenly became liquid. There was puzzling and one was disturbed, but the cold tin alone offered no advantage as a tool or weapon. At best, as jewelry or after developing controlled heating as a compound for stones, similar to lead. Before all this, it was only “strange stones”. (Imagination End.)
Ah, just read, @Grigor has the same imagination

[Elfryc]

I totally agree with Grigor, which said it better than I would ever have.

Also, to add about one point that I often read as a suggestion: I’m really not sure that migration should allow to change of climate (e.g. when migrating, passing from a Western European map to a Mesopotamian map). This would allow for far too much randomness, totally opposed to what I remember having read about the migrations happening by very little steps each time, with the passing generations, something I imagine would be more 30 km than 300.

Related to this, I’m not sure if we have actual data on the distance between neolithic sites, but I think 30 km between them would be far more reasonable than 300. 30 km is the distance walked for a day until the Modern Era, by merchants for example, either by boat, by feet or with a merchants wain – hence the common distance of 25 to 30 km between trade towns from Antiquity to Modern Era, either along rivers or along the inland trade routes.

My opinion is that whenever different climates will be allowed in game (e.g. with Middle Eastern DLC), we should be offered the choice between a random climate, or choose between the different possibilities offered by DLCs – and stick to it, with still would allow for varied resources in metals, stones, etc.
It’s only with the Iron Age that some Empires really stretched on very different climate zones, the most famous of them being the Roman Empire. Before that, Near Eastern Empires (Egypt, Mesopotamia, Achemenids, even Alexander’s Empire) stretched on quite similar climate zones, so probably the random map would fit really well until the Iron Age is reached by the (hopefully) fore-coming DLCs.

(Before there’s any negative comment: I’m not speaking here of world map, as we know since Neolithic there were long-distance exchanges, but of migrations).

Sadly, there’s no mean to ping the Archaeologists group, but maybe @joeroe could say if he has any idea on those things, as I remember having read him in the non-specialists threads?

[Marko]

Just a note that you can have some limited metalwork with native metals even before smelting is invented.

[lotus253]

True!

I have worked copper using ONLY neolithic tools. Cold forging is quite a pain, but would make simple pendants and basic tools.

[Grigor]

I completely agree with @Elfryc, allowing in game migrations across climate zones would not only be a pain for developers (unless it changes completely from one site to the other, or by a black-and-white border in the ground), but would also be unrealistic. Sure, after a long time our tribe would surely be able to migrate all the way from the French Atlantic coast, through Southern Europe and the Balkans, into Minor Asia, up the Zagros mountains and then down into Mesopotamia… but is it even remotely plausible that any one tribe made such a journey within a life time? In the Neolithicum? Many millennia later, during the Achaemenid Empire, when there was order from the Bosphorus to the Indus river, travelling from Mesopotamia was still viewed as something amazing, something normally only traders would do (by ship!) and imperial envoys.

For our tribesmen, it must also seem foolish to drag on, endlessly, away from more fertile and game-rich lands, constantly to the south and east. The nomadic tribes of the Neolithicum and before, never moved because they felt like it, but because they had to. They came to a new land, untouched by human hands, and lived there for as long as it was worthwhile, potentially for many years, depending on many factors. Scientists today believe it took tens of thousands of years for Man to get from East Africa to Europe. And if our tribesmen decided in 9000 BC to go back, south and east… they would be going against the flow, into areas more densely populated, with less game, and all the “good spots” taken.

I do agree to @Elfryc’s suggestion, that generally speaking, our tribe should be stuck in the general region where we first started. Sure, we can migrate within Atlantic Europe or Mesopotamia or similar… but not between one biome and another.

And yes, trade is much easier, and should be allowed even between regions quite early Even if a single merchant can’t bring amber from the Baltics to the Balkans… several can

[tschuschi]

Also think, 30 km is a generous distance. The march distance of troops is generally assumed between 22.5 and 45 kilometers. In the case of impassable terrain, obstacles caused by rivers and bad weather, 22.5 kilometers can be very ambitious. Added to this are deductions for unknown terrain.
I could imagine that you did not intentionally build too close to another settlement, unless you wanted to provoke or was allied in some form.
On the other hand, proximity to other strains would have the advantage of a gene mix that would have been beneficial to the immune system. Probably this did not happen consciously, but instinctively, about fragrance.
Exciting theme!

[tschuschi]

I have read something about “procedure generation”, some games use the apparently very long for different applications within the game. Usually it appears to be used in connection with the generation of the map usage.
Does AC work with such algorithms? (Please forbearance, layman )